Teachers distribute relief in Haiti

With dust-covered toes and calloused hands, English teacher Ryan Ikeda and social studies teacher Seth Donnelly wandered through the streets of Haiti, side-stepping rubble from fallen buildings and damaged sewage pipes.

The two teachers traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti with high school organization One Dollar for Life (ODFL). They spent 5 days of their winter break distributing $8,500 and 6 duffel bags of medical supplies to various programs.

The funds were raised by Bay Area high schools, and supplies were donated by a local nurse. These were distributed to six Haitian organizations including Society of Providence United for the Economic Development of Pétionville (SOPUDEP), Fondayson KoleZepol, SAKALA, MOJUB, a Haitian medical clinic and FOPAD.

The programs serve youth activism and education, empower women, provide medical provisions and help social work services for children and families in Haiti.

“As far as the aid, phase one is kind of complete, which is the immediate damage after the earthquake and getting food,” Ikeda said.

But Ikeda said that these efforts are just the tip of the iceberg, and efforts need continuity in order to really help the Haitians.

“Even though it has moved off front-page news in the media, there is still a lot of help that is needed and a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done,” Ikeda said. “It’s a multi-year process and not just a one-month type of thing.”

According to Donnelly, although immediate needs such as food and water shortage are currently being addressed, new issues are arising from lack of sufficient shelter.

The teachers noticed that many Haitians are now forced to sleep on the ground. Donnelly said that he saw “a lot of wounds and infections” during his trip.

“Now that [the] rainy season is kicking in, the rain water will mix with the mud on the ground and the open sewage lines, and we could be looking at a major health problem,” Donnelly said.

The team slept in tents near the Port-au-Prince airport in the MediShare camp, currently a makeshift volunteer hospital in the city. Documentation of the trips to Dalmas, Pagendo and Cite é Soleil, neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, was preserved in photos and video footage that will be published on the ODFL website, www.odfl.org.

In addition to distributing funds and relief, the team helped survey the land to purchase property for new schools.

“We assessed the land damage and the building damage of different areas to make sure they were still safe,” Ikeda said.

Plans to further raise awareness include a possible student trip to Haiti in the summer. Though the trip is still pending, the teachers hope that this experience will help not only Haitians, but the students as well.

“In the aftermath of the earthquake there was a heightened interest [in helping out],” Donnelly said. “It would be a chance to really establish people-to-people ties between our students and the Haitian youth and community activists.”

At the moment, the trip’s chances of happening are still up in the air, although Donnelly is “fairly confident” that the teachers will be able to organize a safe trip.

Regardless of whether efforts for the trip are fruitful, other donations are still greatly appreciated and encouraged.

The teachers are planning on screening another film for students sometime in upcoming weeks in hopes of renewing the Haiti fundraiser.

“Even though there’s 20,000 US troops in Haiti now … we didn’t see a lot of reconstruction being done by the soldiers,” Donnelly said. “There’s large parts of the city that seem straight-up neglected where the aid’s not reaching.”